Date of Award

8-2024

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

School

Psychology

Committee Chair

Dr. Alen Hajnal

Committee Chair School

Psychology

Committee Member 2

Dr. Nuno Oliviera

Committee Member 2 School

Kinesiology and Nutrition

Committee Member 3

Dr. Aaron Fath

Committee Member 3 School

Psychology

Committee Member 4

Dr. Jonathan Doyon

Committee Member 4 School

Psychology

Abstract

Humans can reliably perceive whether a slanted ground surface can be stood on or not. In the present study we investigated how differences in ambient lighting conditions affected the perception of stand-on-ability. The study manipulated lighting conditions (photopic, mesopic, scotopic) under which participants made affordance judgements about the stand -on-ability of a presented ramp in a virtual reality environment. We hypothesized that less visual information would be available in the scotopic condition, which would result in changes to affordance boundaries and movement complexity, when measured from head sway and center of pressure. Results indicated that participants’ affordance judgements were more conservative in low lighting and that movement complexity decreased at the affordance boundary. In addition, we showed that affordance responses can be predicted by movement complexity. The study demonstrated that exploratory activity exhibited through postural adjustments of the body generates information that specifies affordance perception.

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